


Emergency

by merryghoul



Category: Preacher (TV)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Hospitals, Post-Season/Series 01, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-11
Updated: 2017-12-11
Packaged: 2019-02-13 16:45:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12988218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/merryghoul/pseuds/merryghoul
Summary: What was supposed to be a quick stop for groceries became a trip to get Cassidy some blood.





	Emergency

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AgentDianeEvans](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AgentDianeEvans/gifts).



It all happened so quickly. It all happened outside of Annville, but somewhere east of the Louisiana border. Tulip drove so fast, the Texas towns they did pass by already were a blur to all of them. Anyway, Tulip stopped at a gas station and convenience store to refill her car. Jesse, holding up an umbrella for Cassidy, went inside the convenience store to pick up some things—food, booze, cigarettes. Also inside the convenience store was a man. A red trucker’s cap, a huge beard, a white shirt, overalls—he seemed like a walking stereotype. He didn’t like these two obvious outsiders minding their business, picking up groceries, so he started harassing them. Cassidy had enough of the man taunting him and Jesse, so he confronted the man. The confrontation lead to the man and Cassidy having a physical fight, pushing down shelves, denting cans and making bags explode, and it ended with Cassidy being thrown through one of the convenience store’s windows.

Needless to say Cassidy was not okay having glass shards embedded in his body and the sun beating down on his head, burning his skin.

 

Tulip drove the three of them to the nearest hospital emergency room, a place somewhere far from Annville, but also far from the Louisiana border. As soon as Tulip dropped Cassidy and Jesse off at the emergency room entrance, she sped off. 

“Jesse?” Cassidy’s voice was weak. Not being able to get around because of the pain he felt from the cuts and his skin burning wasn’t helping him, either. “Aren’t you worried about Tulip?”

“We used to do this all the time. She’d drop me off and I’d do things while she’d wait on me. It’s okay, Cass.”

“I’ve never seen anyone speed away from an emergency room entrance, Padre.” (Tulip never told them, but she was scared someone who worked with her ex-husband, Victor, was lurking near the hospital. It was easier for her to hide in the back seat of the car than to hang around near the hospital waiting for Jesse and Cassidy.)

“Let’s get you checked in.”

“Wait, what’s the game plan here?”

“I’m going to get you checked into the ER. Meanwhile, I’m going to sneak around and see if I can find the hospital’s blood bank. Then I’ll sneak into the ER to find you. I’ll give you the blood, and we’ll bolt.”

“I hope it goes as simple as you’re making it.”

 

Unsurprisingly, a vampire born in Ireland, well before the advent of Social Security in the United States, didn’t have any identification at the front desk for any hospital, let alone this one. It shouldn’t have been a surprise to Jesse and Cassidy when the receptionist at the front desk of the emergency room asked Cassidy for identification and health care provider information. Jesse responded to the receptionist with “He’s hurt! Can’t you let him into the hospital?”

The receptionist repeated that she needed Cassidy’s Social Security number as well as his health care provider information for the hospital to admit him into emergency care.

Jesse was forced to use the Word on the receptionist. _“Admit this man,”_ Jesse told the receptionist. The receptionist let Cassidy into emergency care.

(The receptionist kept admitting men, and only men, into the hospital after Jesse used the Word on her. She was later fired from the hospital for discrimination. Days later, after seeing the reflection of a man in a window, the receptionist opened the window and fell to her death. The receptionist’s death was ruled a suicide.) 

 

With Cassidy in a stall in emergency care, Jesse sneaked around the hospital until he found the hospital’s blood bank. The blood bank was locked and only accessible to hospital employees. The only way for Jesse to find a hospital employee was for Jesse to hang out in the waiting room on the same floor that the blood bank was on. With the television in the waiting room busted, Jesse picked up a copy of _Highlights_ magazine and started flipping through it. 

Jesse stood up once a hospital employee, appearing to be headed to the hospital’s blood bank, walked past the waiting room. Once Jesse caught up to the employee, Jesse surprised him and punched him in the face. Jesse locked the employee in a single-stall bathroom after he stole his clothes and his keys to the blood bank. 

In the blood bank, his usual clothing covered up by stolen scrubs, Jesse filled up a small cooler with pouches of blood. Then, knowing cameras were watching his every move as soon as he stepped into the blood bank, he ran.

 

The hospital’s emergency room was a maze of areas cordoned off by blue curtains. Jesse walked up to the front desk and asked for Cassidy by name before describing his gruesome facial and neck burns and the deep cuts on the rest of his body. Since the employees in the emergency room had no clue that Jesse had just stolen blood from their blood bank to feed Cassidy, the employees lead him to the area Cassidy was stationed. 

Cassidy still had burns and cuts on his body, but he put on a cheerful front for Jesse. “Guess who’s my roommate of sorts? Some old man. Something’s wrong with his dick. I think they need to cut off—”

“I got the blood, Cass. And here’s what we’re gonna do next. You’re going to have this.” Jesse pointed to the cooler.

“I know that.”

“I’m going to run into the parking lot and flag down Tulip. When you’re done, run out of the ER, and we’ll be waiting for you with the car.”

“Sounds good.” 

Jesse ran out of the emergency room. When some people tried to stop him from leaving the emergency room, his response was “I have a family emergency. My, uh, girlfriend’s in labor.” It was enough to get the hospital employees to leave him alone, and enough to get him back to the car, where Tulip was still hiding out in the back seat. Jesse’s arrival at the car startled Tulip; she climbed back into the front seat and drove towards the emergency room entrance.

Cassidy took the cooler and started drinking the blood out of the plastic bags they were stored in. Blood splatter hit the walls and the curtain. Cassidy made sounds that didn’t sound human. The people in the emergency room started murmuring and muttering about Cassidy and his behavior. When someone pulled Cassidy’s curtain, revealing he was a vampire, his burns and cuts mostly healed by this point, people screamed. Those who could ran out of the emergency room.

When Cassidy felt better, he ran out of the emergency room himself, just as Jesse instructed him to do. More people ran away from the sight of Cassidy—his mouth dripping with blood, his fangs bared, blood dripping onto his clothes—as he was running. People tried to stop him, but they were too slow.

Cassidy jumped into the back seat of the car; Jesse opened the car door for him. When Cassidy was inside, Tulip floored the gas and sped away from the hospital before anyone could stop them. The three were back on the road in search of God.


End file.
